Retronauts - 630: Battle of the Master System Mascots

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Jeremy Parish, Stuart Gipp, Kurt Kalata, and Nicole (of Nicole Express!) dare ask the burning question that no one else has had the courage to approach until this point: Which Sega Master System mascot was the best Sega Master System mascot? Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

This episode of Retronauts is brought to you by Cook Unity. This week in Retronauts, you may think this is a serious conversation, but I'm just Alex kidding. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Retronauts, the only podcast about old video games that dedicates its 630th episode to Sega mascots. That's right. This is episode 630 of Retronauts, and I'm your host, Jeremy Parrish, and you may think that I might be a body double, a doppelganger, a body snatcher, because I actually know the number, but for once I actually looked up the episode number before starting. That's how prepared I am for this podcast. amazing stuff. And with me here to be equally on top of things on the ball and surely offer some insightful discussions on one of the hottest topics in our present-day society, we have, let's start with the Retronauts Regular from the UK. Oh, hey, that's me. Hello. I'm Stuart. I'm very excited to

talk about all the various Masterson mascots like Professor Asabian and Danan Jungle Fighter and Sonic the Hedgehog. Yes, definitely Sonic the Hedgehog. When one thinks Sonic the Hedgehog, one definitely thinks Sega Master System. Also, joining us from the Hardcore Gaming 101 podcast and various other projects, we have... Kurt Kolata. Hello. Hello, Kurt Kolata. And finally, a newcomer to Retronauts, but someone who is extremely well-versed in the ways of Master System and Sega 8-bit tech in general. I've learned so

much from her blog, please introduce yourself special guest star. Oh, I didn't realize I was special. Absolutely. I am Nicole of Nicole Express. I'm really bad with recording myself because this is the first time I've been on a podcast, actually. Oh, well, thank you for making your debut here with this pressing topic, this extremely important discussion that we're having. For sure. This is, I can think of nothing more important, really. It's monumental. Absolutely. So this episode, oh, go ahead, Stuart.

No, I was just going to say, I mean, everything we've done to this point, honestly, kind of seems like a waste of time effort and energy now doing this. No, no, it's all built up to this. So it's been worthwhile. Oh, I see. It's been, you know, it's been a process. And without those other episodes, we'd never be here. So I would like to introduce this episode properly.

We are talking about Sega Master System mascots. What does that mean, you may ask yourself, if you haven't seen the cover art that I'm going to draw, which will show Alex Kidd and Wonderboy and Opa Opa locked into a battle to the death? That means we're going to talk about those three characters, all of whom, Sega kind of treated as mascots for the Sega Master System platform at one time or another. The question is, whomst among them is the most valid pick for a platform mascot. who best represented the ideals and the dreams of Sega Master System and the many dozens of children who owned that platform as a child. So I've found most of those children here and pulled them into this podcast to talk about it so they can share their thoughts. Thank you, the three of you, for representing the slim contingent, at least in the U.S. of master system owners from back in the day.

Actually, were you all master system owners back in the day? Stuart, you're UK, it was a whole different ball of wax over there. Of course, you owned a master system. Yeah, we all got given them by the government. Yeah, exactly. There was national health and then national games. You know, I was kind of inspired, as so many Americans were, by seeing John Lennon and his national health issued SIGA master system back in the day. Anyway, Kurt, what about you?

Yes, it was a gift from, I had a relative. He was a appliance salesman or something like that, and he had got one as a gift from a supplier or some store or something like that. And he had an older son who was not particularly interested in it. And I was five years old at the time, and I played video games because my dad had an Atari 2600 and Atari 400. So it wasn't new to me, but it was the first that I could call my own. It was the first that I saved my allowance to buy games for and sort of fought the good fight against all. all the other schoolchildren who didn't know what a master system was. Very good.

So you're representing for the pride of now and then. Yes, precisely. Nicole, what about you? I did not. I had a Game Gear and the, I think I had the Master Gear. Yes, because I played Alex Kid and I don't think that ever got a Game Gear release. I mean, Game Gear is an honorary master system. Yeah.

It's a, you know, the Hot Pockets version of Master System. You could take it on the go, but it was equally nutritious. It's full of sodium. It's like, wow, this has so much better color than the Game Boy. Game Boy, yes. It has color for one thing. Yeah. I don't know why it's it better.

It's better than nothing. It is better than green. The Sega Game Gear, better than nothing. Yeah, the Game Boy's one color was not good. So it's a low bar to clear. But no, the Game Gear did look great. I did look upon that device with envy, although I never actually met someone who owned one until like 1998, and by then it was kind of like, why do you still have this amazing? That's so cool. As for myself, I did not own a master system as a kid, but I did have a friend. I've told the story before who owned one and he always liked to show off his counter programming to my cool NES games. And when I was over at his house, he'd be like, isn't this game so much cooler than anything on NES? And then whenever he was over at my house, he was like, you know, those games are okay, but here's all the

problems with them, why they're not as cool as my Master System games. So, you know, it was the authentic childhood experience, I think. And that friend listeners was me. So, you know, I did have some visibility to Master System at the time, but mostly I remember it from the really cool packaging that it had, at least initially cool. After a while, it kind of got long in the tooth. but if you never actually experienced a Sega master system sales rack in a store where it was just like this wall of grids with, you know, kind of very sleek, simple, iconic artwork on it. It did make an impression. Like, it just felt very modern in 1986 or 87. By 1989, it felt kind of like, hmm, here's a relic of the past. But, you know, it was just a, it was a fast-changing world back then. And that's not really Sega's fault. It's still. Tonka's fault, because they messed it up. Graph paper. That's the future.

Exactly. Exactly. So, in the Sega Master System's lifetime, it supported about 100 games, and, you know, that's not nearly as many as the NES had, but they were, some of those games were really, really good. Some of them were not. But what those games did often have was a star character right there on the box. the title character who was Sega's counter-programming to Mario.

And that's a tough fight because Nintendo has done basically everything right with Mario as a character of kind of protecting his brand and making him into this sort of icon that is globally recognized, kind of like Mickey Mouse. There were some bumpy patches in the 80s with a lot of off-model Mario characters appearing on merchandise and stuff. so forth. But, you know, by the time we got to the end of the NES' life, Nintendo had pretty much locked it down and figured out, you know, aside from the odd Captain Lou Elbano, what is Mario exactly? And that was kind of the thing that everyone sort of aspired to match in the game space was to create their own mascot character, their sort of brand ambassador. And there, if you look through, you know, old magazines, old advertisements, you will find an absolute graveyard of failed mascots.

And this is not about those failed mascots. This is not just an opportunity to bag on bubsy. It's actually more an opportunity to bag on characters like Asmic. Or, no, Boomer, the dinosaur for Asmick, who got a little box out in one issue of Nintendo Power saying, check out Boomer, the dinosaur. He's so cool. He's going to be repin Asmic. And then you never heard of him again.

So that was just kind of the nature of things. So naturally, as Nintendo's primary competitor in the 8-bit space in the U.S., especially, Sega, I think, had a lot of pressure to kind of deliver that sort of character that embodied everything that the platform was about, the Sega Master System was about. And if you winnow through and you disregard all the European exclusives like asterisk, or asterix, sorry, and Stuart, did you say Robocod was on Master System? system. Yeah. It was a good version of little. Yeah. Once you disregard the James Pons and the asterix's asteris, how do you pluralize asteris? Anyway, I should have listened to the asterix episode. I haven't had a chance yet. So that's why, that's on me. The three asterix episodes, Jeremy. Okay. Well, there's still lots of time for me to catch up, I guess. Anyway, if you disregard those sort of one-off or relatively obscure, non-international, I would say, characters, what you end up with,

is three characters who showed up in multiple games on Master System, all of which were, if not necessarily always, the strongest games, definitely notable games, and have, you know, kind of taken on a life of their own. They continue to show up in other things as references or, you know, the occasional remake or whatever. And those characters are Alex Kidd, Opa, Opa, a Fantasy Zone, and Wonder Boy.

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R-E-T-R-O, or going to cookunity.com slash retro. So I think when people talk about Sega Master Systems mascot, the first character that comes to mind is Alex Kidd, if only because, one, his game was the first to show up in the U.S. and bear his name in the title. I think Fantasy Zone actually beat Alex Kid and Miracle World out here. But that was not called Fantasy Zone starring Opa Opa. It was just Fantasy Zone. So Opa Opa Opa was a little anonymous, whereas Alex Kidd, right there, living in Miracle World,

and also Alex was in four games. So let's talk about the good and the bad of Alex Kidd because some of his games were very good. and some of his games were, in fact, not. Where do we stand collectively on the Alex Kidd tetrology, the four Alex Kidd games for Master System? If I could be, like, really annoying for a second, there's actually five Alex Kidd games on their master system. What am I overlooking?

The BMX trial, Alex Kidd's BMX trial. That's not on Master System. That's on 3. Thank you. Oh, I apologize. Okay, no, that's fair enough. I have a Japanese console labeled Master System, right? Okay, fair enough. I do too, actually. That's fair. That's a good reasoning, and I take it back.

That is technically correct, and that is actually the best kind of correct, so you win, Stuart. Hooray. Okay. So, since you decided to be a smart ass, you have to go first. Oh, God. Oh, God. Okay. Well, you know, we've actually done a half episode on Alex Kid before or a long time ago. I think that's the first time I was ever on Retronauts, you know. Right, and actually, this is not even that. This is a third of an episode about Alex Kid. He's been demoted. He's been downscaled.

Okay, right. Yeah, that's fair. Considering what's happened in the intervening years. Nothing whatsoever. I got love for Alex Kidd, but, you know, we're talking. I mean, I put Alex Kidd at the top solely because, and correct me if I'm wrong, he was the one that was on the Master System first before being in arcade. He's like the Master System guy, right?

At Miracle World was a Master's game first and foremost, and fantasies. Zone and the other one I've forgotten already, Wonderboy, they were arcade games first. Am I, is that correct? Well, let's look that up. Alex Kid, Lost Stars. I think that Lost Stars hit December. I want to see December of whatever year. You're right.

So he showed up on Master System first by one month. By one month. Wow. Okay. That almost doesn't even count in those days. It's true. I mean, also those release days might simply be made up by, by that is correct. I have that. But no, Miracle World, for me, big deal. I had it built into my little master system too, and I loved it, even though it was basically impossible because they didn't localize it exceptionally well. So some of the puzzles were, well, one of the puzzles was not really doable by me without guide. But you've got, I would say, two games that are very good there. One game that's, it's all right. And then, you know, high tech world, which is just like, I'm going to try not to swear on this.

episodes. So yeah, just, you know, make up your own swear word for that one. I think high tech world is amazing. I played it for the first time about half an hour ago. And I was not expecting it to be an adventure game. But I walked around the castle a little bit talking to some people. I found a suit of armor and put it on and the game ended. That's amazing. I love that so much. Like that is just like pure, we don't care about you stupid kids kind of video game design. That's like the essence of microcomputer 8-bit game design. And I think it's wonderful

that they brought that to Master System. I don't like it, but I don't well respect it, Jeremy, for its cruelty. It's not good or fun, but the fact that it just, like my first experience was basically like the first thing

that I did into the game. I think that rules. It's called the Sierra Experience, I think. And I don't think that's even the meanest trick in that game. Really? That's actually exciting. I'm looking forward to getting to this on Seguide. Yeah, there's some fun stuff with the stairs. You're going to love it.

There's also some gun smuggling later on. It's an experience for sure. So let's talk about that first Alex Kid game by a matter of a month, Alex Kid in Miracle World. I'm going to forgive it the fact that Sega didn't understand how you should orient, jump and attack buttons for a long time. You can rewire that in an emulator or a mister or something, reconfigure your controls, rewire a real control. controller if you have to. I built an adapter to swap those buttons. Interesting, because my copy that was built into my master system did have them, the White Ray Round, but also Alex Kid had a hamburger instead of like a white.

Yeah, Alex Kid has the burger. Yeah, and they definitely had the normal control. So when I emulated it many years later, I was like, what the hell is going on here? Why is it wrong? Yeah, I'm too near the end of 1988 in my video chronology, and I'm still coming across games to get that swapped. But it's not always. It's not consistent. Like, I'll come across another game that has it the way everyone else in the universe arranged their attack and jump buttons. So it was a very strange inconsistency. But it does make the game a little hard to go back to,

if you just play it, you know, in the sort of original incarnation. But again, I'm willing to forgive that because there are many ways to work around that. Some are, you know, simple. minded like mine. Some are very sophisticated like Nicole's. But the important thing is that we all arrive at the same destination together and experience Miracle World as one. Kurt, you haven't really said too much this episode. What do you think of Alex Kid and Miracle World? Would you like to give everyone a top level view of the game and how it works, what it's about, et cetera? Oh, I was so excited for this game. It wasn't one of the games that came with my master system, but it wasn't one of the first ones I was really excited for. I don't remember. why. I just remember being, like, before Christmas Eve, like, yeah, I'm going to get Alex Kidd the next day. And I was right. And incidentally, the button swapping didn't really bother me because I didn't have a Nintendo. And all the previous game systems I had had just one button. So it never occurred to me that it was really an issue at the time. It wasn't until many years later where I went back and played it. I'm like, why is this reversed? And I think

there was some interview with a Sega employee that just like, we felt that we should swap them. that was just okay yeah just got to do their own thing it's a very enlightening into you but Alex Kidd

was the big game that I used to try to lord over the other kids in second grade even though they had no idea what I was talking about

you are a kid named Alex Kidd going through America World people compare it at least at the time to Super Mario Brothers but it really is a much more

complex game because you have different levels that scroll vertically you have levels that scroll horizontally you're a kid who has

a magical power that can break bricks. So that's actually not... Somehow called Shellcore. I don't know what that has to do with bricks. Yeah. That's actually not unlike Mario too much. So you need to smash stuff and you look for money. But money isn't just used to get extra lives.

There's a whole shop system. So every once in a while, you can spend your little money on extra lives. There are little things you can get. There are vehicles you can find. There's a little motorcycle. There's a really unique little helicopter that you use. by peddling. So there's a huge variety in each of the levels

and not like most of them are still very platforming focused. The platforming in this game is very, very severe, I guess is a word you can use to say. That's a good description of it, yes. Because it is very slippery. There's a lot of platforms that are precisely the width of Alex that you need to weave in between

and because there's a little bit of inertia every time you move, which again is not too unlike Super Meyer brothers. But I feel the challenges in this game are a little harsher. Yeah, you know, I feel like at the time this came out, everyone was clearly trying to chase Super Mario Brothers because it was such a massive hit, especially in Japan. Like, it's hard to convey just what a huge hit that game was over there. Like, the strategy guide was the best selling book in the country for weeks on end. It was, it was just enormous. It was a huge hit.

And everyone who was making games was like, damn, we got to do that. And so we'll talk about this later with Wonder Boy. Some of them were very, very direct in how they approached it. And some were, you know, more oblique like Alex Kidd, which kind of builds in a lot of PC game type adventure elements and the kind of quest mechanics of something like Tower of Duraga. Yes, I said it. So, you know, it has a lot of complexity. But the thing that no one got right for a long, long time was Mario's physics, which were spot on and so much better. Speaking as someone who remembers this game coming out and playing it versus everything else at the time, like no game controlled as well as Super Mario Brothers at the time.

And Alex Kidd was one of the mini games that almost got there, but not quite. So the jump mechanics just seem a little primitive. It's more advanced than like a Ghosts and Goblins or something because you do have some control over your arc in mid-air, but there is, like, it just seems like the math behind the jump mechanics is simpler, like the, just kind of the, the way you move and the, um, inertia and the decay of the arc and things like that. I'm not mathematical enough to be able to give a good explanation of why that is, but it's something that I intuit at least, and so if I say it, I might actually sound as smart as I want to be.

But, yeah, like Alex Kidd kind of comes close but doesn't quite nail it. And that does sort of work against its favor. It's very, very strict in its collision detection. It wants you to do a lot of really fine maneuvering that is very, very challenging, especially with the square D pad that the master system had. It registers diagonals a bit more enthusiastically than you necessarily want sometimes. So it's a very tricky game to play. But I do feel like it's very rewarding.

Like once you kind of settle into the groove and kind of get it, it kind of works together. Like it all kind of comes together and works well. I dated a girl in college who saw me playing an emulator and said, oh, can you play Master System games on this? And I said, yes. So I loaded up Alex Kid and Miracle World because she said that was her favorite game. And she just tore that apart, you know, on a gravis game pad on an emulator on some pokey old Macintosh. Like, that, you know, it was bicycle memory. It just, it didn't go away.

So, you know, it was hardwired into her the same way that, like, playing through Mega Man 2 is hardwired into my brain. It's just one of those things that once it clicks, it clicks and it stays there. I think it's very telling that we haven't even mentioned Jankin yet. It's not even come up. And it's like the main, I guess it's because as soon as we mentioned that, the game is ruined for everyone. Yeah. It's a little. I'm sticking throughout, like, yes, all these pieces come together.

The physics are maybe a little sloppier, but it works, but then you hit a boss. It's, but well, just in case anyone's not knowledgeable of it, really, the bosses are fought by making you play rock paper scissors against them, which wouldn't be necessarily an issue if you had an item that, for example, let you read their minds, say it's called a thlepathy ball. Hypothetically. Hypothetically. But the first boss, unfortunately, occurs before a player has a chance to get some. such an item. So unless you already know the pattern, it really is genuinely luck-based.

The patterns don't actually change as long as you keep winning, so you can memorize how to beat them. But that first boss is going to be a roadblock, like surely for a lot of people are going to get to that and they're just going to go and that screw this amount. Because it's, it's really

unfair to do that to you. And this is level three. Sorry, this is level two, isn't it? I said three, because I forgot that the first level transitions into a swimming stage. I thought it was a separate level, but no, it's, it's quite, it's, it's quite an impressive game, you know, but once you get past that, you can get the telepathy ball, but also, crucially, you can miss it. You can miss it, just like there are other items in the game,

you can miss that then make it unwinnable, like the personal letter in the castle. If you don't get that, you're kind of out of luck. There's a little sort of exchange sequence going on there. So it's a polished console experience that just has these little things thrown in that they really sort of muddy the waters. So the Sierra experience was sort of baked into Alex Kidd's DNA, really. Yeah. If you're very fortunate, like I was, you will come across a copy of Alex Kidd and Miracle World whose previous owner wrote the boss order in the manual and, you know, reduced the

value of the game perhaps for resale, but increased the value for playability. So, you know, it's a trade-off. And if you play the Sega Ages version on the Switch, the border has all the answers in it. So you don't need to ever think about it. That's a sign of good game design when you just give the answer away for someone as part of, like, the presentation. So, yeah, there's a lot to be said that's good about Miracle World. Let's not talk about the final encounter that you have in the game, which, you know, again, is one of those you've got to to memorize it and you have to execute it perfectly.

Not so great. Yeah, you don't have to memorize it, but you do have to be able to, you do have to be aware that when they show you the solution, it's actually, you know, right to left, not left to right. Like, I would have thought having never even had any concept of Japan whatsoever. You can refer to it. The onigiri that he eats between levels is your hint. Yeah.

It was a hamburger, Jeremy. Oh, no wonder, no wonder. I thought it all took place in Seattle or something. I don't know. You know, I had no, like, you know, a six-year-old in suburban New Jersey has no idea what Onigiri is. So I thought he was eating a tear in the scenery. Like, I didn't know what he was doing. It was just bizarre.

It's clearly a donut. I didn't even know what it was when Pokemon started, so I genuinely thought it was a donut. I didn't understand what was going up. I was like, it doesn't look anything like a donut, but he said it is, so I guess it's a donut. It's jelly filled. It's like a tuna and mayo jelly. inside of the rice. Anyway, yeah, so Miracle World, a lot of good to be said about it.

At the same time that it came out on consoles, Sega released an arcade game, also starring Alex Kid, Alex Kid the Lost Stars, which actually has nothing whatsoever to do with Miracle World. Like, the only thing that would tie it to Miracle World is the fact that the character is, once again Alex Kidd, and at the beginning of every level, a little digitized voice says, which apparently is find the miracle ball. So there you go. There is the word miracle present in the game. But otherwise, they're nothing alike. Alex has none of his powers from Miracle World in the Lost Stars. Also, he has like another character you can play as two-player co-op with, who's, yeah, not seen in Miracle World. It's a very strange

strange choice of branding. Let's release an arcade in a console game that actually have nothing to do with one another besides the main character. And I feel like that's probably because Alex Kid and Miracle World was apparently supposed to be a Dragon Ball game and the licensing didn't work out. So there's so many elements of Miracle World

that you look and you're like, oh yes, this is definitely I can see Dragon Ball written all over this. So I'm guessing that what happened is when that license fell through, they had this other, you know, character, mascot platform game that they were working on, and they said, hey, Rieko Kodama, can you please turn this character into sort of like a monkey little guy who can kind of be a Goku and then we'll put him in both games. And that is how you end up with Miracle World and Lostars. The Alex Kid Games released a month apart that have nothing to do. with one another. It's all speculation on my part, but I think it's a pretty good premise. I'm going to put it on Wikipedia, and it's going to become true. That actually explains a lot of the elements in Miracle World, like the helicopter and the motorbike and the bull that looks kind of Tarayama looking. Yes. Yeah. And the fact that Master Roshi is in it. Yeah. But they didn't realize that Dragon Ball was all in on a secret cassette vision.

Yeah, yeah. They just couldn't compete against that top-down shooter. where you're on a cloud shooting stuff like Goku always did. Yeah, the Lost Stars. I just recently played that for SIG-Eiden, and it's a weird game. Like, the graphics are I don't

think I can call them great, but they're really big. The graphics in that game are very big. I think from a technical standpoint, Lost Stars, they're kind of going all out there, you know, simultaneous, big sprites, food miracle ball. Tons of

tons of colors. Yeah, super colorful. Lots. Screaming, lots of... The screaming is so funny. That child screams every time he dies and he dies a lot. Oh, he has the weird... Is he that split jump?

Like, how does he not injure himself every time? That's his cyan power, I guess. Can I do a joke about him, his miracle balls? Oh, I went. All right. I see we've already descended into that rabble. So, yeah, the loss. Stars is a strange game because it has 12 levels, but it actually only has six levels,

and you just play the six levels twice in order to complete the game. So it's kind of like ghosts and goblins, but without really any justification for it, it's just like, okay, you got six of the Zodiac symbols. Now go do the same thing and get the other six. Hooray. And yet, it's still one of the best Alex Kid games that there is. There's not that many. That's true.

That's true. But yeah, it's okay. Like, it takes a little while to kind of get used to the controls because the jump and control physics feel even more simplistic, I would say, than in Miracle World. And the collision detection is very, very unforgiving. And there's a lot of things that just kind of exist on screen to slow you down and annoy you. Like, there's not really a way to avoid them or counter them. So you just have to wait for them to go by. Meanwhile, like, your health is ticking down because it's all.

also a Wonder Boy rip-off. But you've got a stamina meter at the top that doubles as a health meter. So it's kind of doing a lot of things. It has some neat ideas. Like, you know, you're shimming across overhead bars, which is kind of cool. And then there's like a tiny little tram that rides across the bars. And you're like, am I in some sort of giant world or something? I don't know what's happening. But it's cool. It's cute. It's fun. But it just doesn't really have a coherent vision to it. There's one level where you're fighting or I guess not really fighting, but trying

to avoid Godzilla's and they roar at you and their roars or little words that say gar. And the letters, the individual letters bounce across the screen. It's cute. It's not great, but it's colorful and cute. And I guess that makes it a really great

kind of Duplo video game for the preschool set. Yeah. Yeah. It's got chum. It's hard. I remember sitting, I didn't have this game, but there was one other friend that did buy this game somehow. And I remember spending a lot of afternoons just trying to get through this game because it is relatively forgiving. The arcade version, like you still have, like, lives and stuff like that. Whereas the mass system version is a little different.

Every time you die, it just depletes the time a little bit. So you do get a lot of opportunities to retry stuff over and over. But some of the stuff gets really brutal as far as the jumps and timing. I actually found that the first stage is the hardest in the game. Like, if you can make it past the first stage of Alex Kidd, The Lost Stars, you can probably finish the game. There are some sticky spots, especially when you get to, I guess, what counts for bosses in the game. At the end of every level, you're not really fighting these things. It's just they, like, fill up the screen and scatter obstacles all around, and one of them will kill you and set you back.

And you have to get past them safely. and those are really, really challenging. But otherwise, like, just getting past the, you know, the toy soldiers and the dogs and the trams and stuff in stage one, like, if you can do that, you can pretty much make it through the rest of the game pretty easily, in my experience anyway. I don't find that's the case with the arcade game. Ah, yeah. I mean, Alex in Lost Stars, I feel like he gets a lot of verticality on his jumps and not very much horizontal at all. So it has a kind of an odd feel in that respect, especially. Compared to a miracle world where he's all over the place, you know, big jumps, big launches everywhere.

In this, he's almost kind of laden and he feels sort of, he'd feel heavy and very slow despite the sort of verticality he can pull off. So it's got an unusual feel for almost for really many platform games, I would say. And I feel like that's kind of what makes it kind of annoying is that like you have this very vertical jump and the whole game's about jumping horizontally over the enemies. That's also my complaint about Castlevania Circle of the Moon. Hey, we've got this cool game system with a, you know, a widescreen format for the first time ever in a video game console.

Let's make our character jump really high and not very far forward. I think that would be a really good design choice. Thank you. I'm Konami. And that's the first time Alex Kid the Lost Stars has ever been compared with Castlevania. But not the last. Not the last. I mean, at the end of Castlevania, when you beat a boss, you collect

a miracle ball. Isn't that correct? That's true. That is true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. See? How deep does this go? Let's set up a stringboard. Is Alex Kidd, the modern descendant? Ignore Aria of Sara. It's not important. I think we could get our heads together. We could probably get about 100 different comparisons, probably more than 100.

That's some conspiracy theory material right there, my friend. So, um, that's Miracle World and Lost Stars. in BMX World, or BMX Trials, sorry, didn't come to the U.S. It requires the use of a rotary dial controller that did not come to the U.S. It is not worth tracking down

a non-U.S. system and a rotary controller to play, but it does exist. Alex Kidd had a kind of weird racing game on a bicycle. It had an official BMX license, I think. So, good on you, Alex. I mean, I guess if we

say, like, the mascot, the fact that, you know, they're like, oh, well, obviously we need to make Alex Kidd the guy on our BMX game because, you know, that's, I guess there was a motorcycle in Miracle World. That's true. Yeah. I do recall reading somewhere. They're like, yeah, we need a bike racing game, so let's stick Alex Kidd in there. So he was the jump boy. Not a jump man yet, just a jump boy. I'm noticing that Alex Kidd didn't have that many, I mean, only two of his games could really be called complete sort of originals in a way, which is a little bit sad. I feel kind of bad for him, you know. It's a shame. He didn't get, he was supposed to be Dragon Ball. He was supposed to be whatever this BMX thing was, BMX guy, and they shoved him in there. And Shinobi, which is just, you know, coasting on someone else's success, really.

Oh, well, what about a high tech world? That was actually not even an Alex Kidd game in Japan. That was On Mitsuhime. So, like, that's why nothing that seems to have anything whatsoever to do with Alex Kidd because it's a different franchise altogether. Yeah, I don't know why, of all the Japan exclusive games, they're like, On Mitsuhime, that needs to come to America one way or another, being it. They should have brought over Suki Bandekka, too, or something.

There were some pretty good Japanese exclusives on MitsuHime, maybe not so much. it is a really weird looking back of it. I don't really... I mean, just, I mean, play this just to laugh at it like like Jeremy has, you know, just to take joy in how cruel and unfollow. The plot of the game is Alex Kidd wants to play

a better game. Well, there's the plot again, it's like the map to a new arcade. He has to find a map to get to the arcade, yes. And someone tore it up or something and hid all the pieces that just show the map. I mean, surely there's a better way than just follow it. Maybe there's some signs

Or you figure it's probably in the town that's adjacent where he lives. So you just go there. I don't know. This is how people live before Google. Okay. I was going to say this is one of those plots that would not survive in the modern era because people just have their phones. But back then, you just had to find seven pieces of paper.

Use your local map to get to the local arcade. They're ninjas everywhere. There's miracle balls, is it? In those forests. So you need a map. It's an adventure game. it sort of changes into sort of an action game. There are some actiony bits in this game,

like if you get far enough. But let's face it, you're not going to. So, you know, no one's going to see that stuff. It's all just walking around a house dying. Now, as one does, is there a way to equip the armor without getting a game over? Or is that just a permanent trap? No, no, it's just a joke. They're just messing with me.

I respect that. Not even with an action replay. Wow. Damn. This is before Alf. Okay. So the Alth book was actually a Alex Kid Roboff. Hmm.

They really should have made the Alth game in Alex Kid game. That was a Sega America. Alf Kid. Yeah. That's the sake of America. You already got two of the letters. It's not weird. They made that game explicitly for us.

They should have, yeah, they should have brought it to a Japan and Europe with Alex Kid in Alth world. That would have been a great reverse. importation. Did Ralph have much traction in Japan, do you think? Was he popular in Japan? Is he still popular? I feel like he might have. I don't know.

He's kind of grotesque, but also he's a puppet. So I'm not sure where he falls on that sort of like European, you know, Western stuff is gross and puppets are cute. Like that divide. I could see it going either way. In the right hands. Probably just dependent on the marketing. In the right hands, they could make him cute, sell some merch.

I mean, they could have done like Crash Bandicoot and sort of anime-fied him to give him that glow-up. But maybe that was just too much trouble for Alf, or maybe it's just he's too grotesque and it's not worth the trouble. Anyway, the last Alex Kid game to talk about is Alex Kid and Shinobi World, which some will say is the best Alex Kid. It's certainly the most accessible. It's certainly the most playable. It's probably the best game, the one I have the most fun playing. It's the only one that doesn't have some really obvious thing in the way of you having fun with it. It's just a fun action game, start to finish.

It's not amazing. It's just pretty good, I'd say. I didn't play this one until much later, because by that point, like, high-tech world wasn't the last Master System game I got, but it was one of them. And by that point, I was like, you know what, maybe this thing is on its way out. I should probably get an NES. So I didn't play Shinobi World until much later. And I like Shinobi World quite a bit, but it also came in that era where, where it was clear that Sega wasn't bankrolling its 8-bit productions very much.

So it's a very short game. There's like four levels in it, which compared to like the, I mean, how long is Miracle World? It's like 12, 15 stages in it. Like, that's expansive. It's an adventure. And this is clearly a, like, ah, it's fun tossed together. I mean, I make it sound bad, but it's not. I just put together like yesterday in my Shinobi episode of Sege Iden.

So, you know, jumping into Alex Kid and Shinobi World and playing a few levels of that, I'm really struck by the fact that it is just Shinobi, like the enemies and patterns and, like, the weapons you get. It's all pretty much Shinobi minus the Shuriken. Like, it's all close range action. Shinobi is good, so it's fine. No, no, Shinobi's great. Shinobi is like, hey, what if we did Rolling Thunder? But with ninjas and, like, yes, that's a very good idea.

Thank you, Sega. And Shinobi and master system particularly very good as well, I'd say, a really brilliant game. I mean, I had Shinobi as a kid. But I didn't have this, and I one day rented this. And, like, I mean, for a Master System game, it's, I know this is going to sound silly, but it could probably barely pass as early Mega Drive, very early Mega Drive in some ways. It's very good looking. It's very fast-paced.

And the fact that it starts with, like, his banger remix of the Shinobi Stage 1 theme, where you're climbing up a lamppost and doing crazy till I do spins around them and turning into a fireball, it's just cool. And ball jumping, you know, get in the sword and slashing everything. It's like a sort of parodius to gradius, parodius kind of thing, I guess. Like, look at it that way. So, yeah, the thing that struck me about it is that it is just Alex Kidd playing, you know, Shinobi. So I'm wondering if it actually started as, you know, like SD Shinobi or something, like a satire game of Shinobi.

And at some point they said, you know, it doesn't really fit our brand for Joe Musashi to have a giant head and be like turned into a toddler. So why don't we take our mascot character guy and just slap his sprite in there? I don't, again, this is all me speculating, but just kind of given the way things were developing in the Japanese games market at the time, you know, Konami Y, Y, Y World and other things like that were kind of becoming S.D. Splatterhouse, you know, they were becoming fairly popular and fairly common, SD Valise. I could see Sega saying, we should jump on that bandwagon, but then maybe, maybe getting cold feet and deciding, actually, this badass ninja should just be a badass ninja

and not a baby. So let's put an actual baby in here and just keep the game the same. And it works, but it does kind of make me wonder, like, was this going to be just a Shinobi satire game instead of an Alex kid satirizing Shinobi game? There's, I think, I mean, everyone points this out when they talk about this game, but the first boss was originally Mario, right? It was much more directly parodying Super Mario, which is why the first boss turns small when you damage him enough

in the final game. Ken O is the original boss, and then, yeah, Mario, it's an easy choice. I think there's a good argument that this is one of the best platformers on the master system, despite being very short. It really does. It is very complete feeling, and you can replay it. It is fun to replay. to find and stuff it's a yeah it's pretty and you know it does get kind of challenging towards the end as well

for the last level and a half which isn't saying much maybe um i think it's real good and i think it probably is the best alex kid game but the one that my heart belongs to is miracle world always will be yeah when i think Alex kid i think miracle world but miracle will have the biggest impact on me so that's definitely mine but because like shinobi world i guess by that point maybe Alex Kidd having nothing to do with the other Alex Kids was a tradition. It paved the way for Alex Kidd in like altered beast world, you know, and they never got that. It's a bummer. I'm trying to imagine Alex Kidd like turning into, I mean, he would just be going Super Sion again,

turning into a giant, you know, jacked up monkey. So it's, you know, it would just be leaning too close to its secret origins and they couldn't do that. They'd get in trouble. That's my pitch for a new Alex Kidd game. It's just he goes into different worlds based off a Sega. games. Like, he'll go to space area world or Yakuza world or Valkyar Chronicles world.

Like, why not? I mean, I could see him doing like a Junkin thing with Yakuza. That actually, that actually kind of works. Yeah, yeah. They could have geared up for a comeback, but then they did the remake and, you know, in my personal opinion, they beefed it so hard, but unfortunately, it's never going to make any kind of return.

It's a shame. Very sad. He might be a playable driver in a racing game or something, or playing tennis. but that's it. He should be driving BMX, obviously. Yeah, he should. They should bring back that AAA, Alex Kid, BMX return.

But they probably beefed that as well, let's face it. Alex Kid BMX, Triple X trials. A claim missed the opportunity there to have a great collaboration with Sega 20 years ago, and we're all paying the price today. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be. Anyway, so that was Alex Kidd. Let's move along to our second mascot, Opa Opa, the Star of Fantasy Zone,

who I would say in a lot of ways was a more proper Sega mascot. got not just for master system, but in general, like seemed kind of like a flagship character for a while, and then kind of disappeared, which is very sad. And I think maybe the problem with Opa Opa is that Opa is basically a spaceship that thinks it's a bird. It's got wings and feet, but no face, which I think kind of makes it hard to, you know, to like connect with on a personal, I guess him. I guess Opa Opa is a him. He has a brother. and a father. And yeah, so Opa Opa is, he has no face and maybe is a little harder to to relate to than someone like Alex Kidd who has kind of a horrible face, but at least does have a face. But Opa Opa arguably was in much better games than Alex Kidd. Where do we stand on this? There were only three Fantasy Zone games on Master System. Although, of course, Opa Opa showed up. many other places, such as the

life-giving power-up in Zillion. Again, mascot character showed up in a Japanese TV series as like the team mascot. Wow, that's, you know, hard to fight against there. But fantasy zone, great games. Opa is so weird

that, like, you can kind of put it as a came, put him as a cameo anywhere. Like, if Alex Kidd could not be your power up in Zillion, that would just be strange. It's true. Well, Opa Opa works because Opa Opa was in Zillian as part of the White Knights

their little group companion friend, although in Zillion 2 Opa Opa shows up as a bad guy that you have to shoot, so it's a little strange, maybe that's Upa Upa, yes. Yeah, that's probably the bad half of Opa Opa from Fantasy Zone 2. Because, you know, Fantasy Zone is at its heart a story about trauma

and PTSD. Yeah. It has a really weirdly dark storyline considering the fact that it is like a game spy. entirely from cotton candy. Yeah, I love Opa Opa. I've got like a little model Opa Opa that someone made me and I treasure it as my

finest possession. It's really hard for me to think of these games as bigger than Alex kid, mascot-wise, but I think that's because they are schmups, which are very unconventional sort of schmups where you don't

have a fixed scrolling. You can go left to right and in the later games you can even switch sides of the world to, you've got to take out. But should we give an overview of what it is? Should we do that? Absolutely. Yeah. Should I do that?

Because I feel like I'm talking too much. You should. You should talk too much, please. All right. Otherwise, it's me talking too much and no one wants that. Well, Fantasy Zone is you dropped into the Fantasy Zone. And yes, it is the same one from Space Harrier, by the way. Fact fans, probably.

I don't know. I may have made that up. I mean, there was a crossover for PC engine that was canceled called Space Fantasy Zone, which was like a Space Harrier Fantasy Zone crossover. We just weren't ready. No, it was too pure for this world. We're still not ready.

Basically, you take control of Opio and you have to go sort of left to right across these worlds where you're assailed by enemies. Taking out, I don't know what they're actually called in the story, but I call them just like bosses. They're these particular

objects that you can either shoot or drop bombs on. You can upgrade your weapon. by collecting cash that dropped from defeated enemies and then buy better weapons. Once you've destroyed all of these targets, I guess they are. You then fight the boss, which you do fight in the traditional kind of, you can only face sort of right, and it's a single screen kind of deal. And basically, you play the whole game through, it's not that hard, and then you get to like the last level or two, and then you just die

because you have to have a certain loadout to not die, and I don't have the load out because I always forget. And then if you die, you lose all your loadouts, so you then can't win. It's the classic gradius conundrum Well, you can win I just give up at that point Because I get salty A hypothetical person can weigh

But I cannot A lot of it has to Like you get money from everything That you kill And you can use that to buy stuff And the thing is every time you buy something Every subsequent time it gets more expensive So you need to

Kind of wager about how much you want Certain items or how many extra lives You want for that final level because it is really important. You've got very limited ammunition for some of the... Well, I'm not sure if it's timed or it's ammunition, actually. I never check, so I'm an idiot. I usually hold the firebomb.

Yeah, I think it's timed. It depends on the weapon. Okay. Well, like the 16-ton weight, you know, you can only use that once. But other things, you can... It's a timed... It's a time feature. I think that's the only way I was able to beat the final boss is just by using the weight

at the right time. I think that's what you have to do. I couldn't do it otherwise. It's the one that sort of fills the screen slowly, right? It goes from the bottom, left to right, to the top, and you're just like, what do I do? How do I beat this? And the only way is to use heavy-duty weapons. And I think that's how you do it.

I think it's almost a puzzle box in that respect. And I love it, but I don't like it. Yeah, Fantasy Zone was a pretty big deal for Sega. And one of the ways I track how big a deal a game was for Sega is how heavily they made videotapes about it. there was like a handful of games that they published a bunch of VHS tapes and laser disks about. And they were just like what you go on YouTube now and you look for

like Fantasy Zone long play, this was it except you could buy it and play it on your Laserdisc player. So it was like a premium video. Wow. And so those games were like Outrun, Super Hang-on, Thunder Force, Galaxy Force, like kind of the big games, but also

Fantasy Zone kept showing up. So clearly they loved Fantasy Zone. And it's a game that really has connected with certain people who are fairly highly placed in game development. As you can see by the fact that M2, the company that does a lot of Sega's retrospective content like Sega Ages, took Fantasy Zone 2 for Master System and backported it to the System 1 or System 16 arcade hardware. Yeah, System 16. They made their expanded 16, if I remember right. They gave it more RAM and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. So they turned it into the arcade game that it never was and then released that as part of a Sega collection on 3DS. So it obviously connected with some people and inspired them. And it was the kind of thing where they were like, well, now that I'm in-game development and I'm working with Sega, I'm going to do this thing that I always wanted to see. So that's always to me the sign of a great game when it just inspires someone to go back and do something really interesting. like that and try to improve on history in ways that it wasn't, which is why

to me, Opa Opa is a better mascot than Alex Kidd, because Alex Kidd did receive a remake recently, but it was so literal. It was just like, here's Alex Kinn and Miracle World, but with new graphics. Whereas the fantasy zone stuff that M2 does is like,

here is a loving recreation of a thing that never existed, but could have in a better universe. Please enjoy this gift from us to you because we love you. we love Fantasy Zone. I guess if we think of Fantasy Zone as like a master system mascot, the fact that it's the only one of the witch to get a master system game in the arcade. But, you know, I kind of think it's a general Sega thing, which is why I was surprised to see it on

this list. That's kind of my interpretation too. But going back to what I was going to say, M2 actually remade the game twice even later. Like they did a, for the PS2 collection in Japan, they did like what it would have been like on the Nintendo, even though there was a Nintendo version of Fantasy Zone. Which disqualifies it. Yeah. And then they went back and did a Genesis port that's on the Mega Drive Mini 2, which is like almost redundant because it's not really that much different from the arcade version, but they just really love that game. And it's like, for as popular as that was and for prolific as a lot of Sega stuff was overseas, I don't think it ever really, at least in North America and the arcade ever came out.

Like anybody that knew it, knew it from the master system. Right. And I guess it's just maybe they thought that it was too cute. Maybe they didn't want to market a shooter. You think of a lot of Sega games at the time that they were doing was a really graphically impressive stuff like Afterburner. And that's, it's a beautiful looking game, but it's not like tossing 3D sprites at you or anything like that. So it's kind of a bummer that they, we were sort of ignored in that way. But the same time, they do make a note that there wasn't overseas release because they changed something music.

And I was like, overseas for where? Yeah, that was why I put Opa Opa on here because, yes, Fantasy Zone and Fantasy Zone the maze did begin in arcades, but Fantasy Zone the maze never came to the U.S. in arcades. And Fantasy Zone 2 was an original creation for the Master System. So, to me, that counts. And also, you just see Opa Opa everywhere in Master System. He just, like, pops up randomly as a Sprite or a power up or like a cameo in all kinds of games. And Alex Kidd does too, but I don't think as frequently as Opa Opa does. Yeah, the quartet comes to mind for Alex Kidd.

I'm not sure. Yeah, there was a hidden screen where, like, him and Teddy Boy, and I think the night from Pitpot shows up. Like, it's a pity we never got more Pitpot content. Yeah, wasn't the Pitpot on this podcast? Yeah, yeah, Pitpot. Well, because Pitpot was not on the master system, only Mark 3, unless you're cool and own a Japanese master system, which is just a Mark 3, but fancied up. That's the story that I'm sticking with. consistency, like a through line in his games on Master System.

Fantasy Zone is, you know, just as Stuart described it, it's basically like they took Defender and said, let's make it out of, you know, cotton candy and also give it an economy. And that's really cool. It's got a really interesting balance with the bosses and the random enemy spawns where you have to kind of take down these persistent, durable enemies. while avoiding things that just sort of fly in in random patterns. They're not actually random. There's kind of an order to them.

But they're very challenging and they mix things up a lot. And every level has different patterns of enemies that you have to be mindful of. And they're all designed to kind of keep you on your toes. So there's a really great balance to it. Fantasy Zone 2 is the same thing, but more complex. Like the enemy patterns are more complex. The enemy types, like the bases are more complex. And as Stewart said, you have to kind of go between spaces

within levels. So instead of being a single, instead of being a single toroid, it's like multiple linked toeroids together. And you have to kind of track which space you've cleared the bosses out of before you can take on the true level boss. So it's very complex and there's a lot to it. I think if this was a sort of a contest for which is the best series in terms of quality games, it would, Oprah would walk it. But because it's sort of which is the best master's to mascot, I think it's still up in the air, quite frankly. I think it's anyone's game. And also, I'm really sorry, but Pitpot did actually come out in, at least Europe. It was on a double cartridge with Astro Warrior. I'm really sorry, but it was.

Yeah, that's where I live. Well, I guess we got exiled, but I guess that's what I live. No, it was a self-exile. It's true. It was not up at the time. Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay, so you did have Pitpot, which is a pretty cool little game. I respect it. But I recently discovered Fantasy Zone the maze for the first time, and I was not expecting anything from this. And it is so good. It is, you know, a Pac-Man knockoff that is fundamentally inside and out fantasy zone. And I wouldn't think that's possible, but they made so many cool, smart decisions with this game to keep it very tense and, you know, really keep players on their toes at all time to create this very sort of graduating difficulty level

that constantly increases. But it also gives you the ability to push back against that. and keep the difficulty level down. But there's a trade-off of like, do I want to manage the difficulty or do I want to get time bonuses? Because the longer I'm, you know, sort of mitigating the difficulty, the more time is ticking down. And so I'm not going to get as many points and as many coins. And of course, you're earning coins, which again, you can use to transfer into power-ups that will help you through the stages and give you the ability to fight back against enemies. Instead of getting Pac-Man energizers, you're getting, you know, triple shots and fireballs and 16 ton weights because it's fantasy zone and it's just it's so good and also it's

cooperative which is even better or it would be if I had friends the thing about fantasy zone the maze is I mean maybe it's just me but I felt like it's very late for a Pac-Man type game like I think that's why I kind of always just was like oh why is this here didn't really give it the chance it deserves I kind of felt the same way like that was technically my first exposure to a fancy zone even though I didn't actually play it. What I did is I did subscribe to the Sega Challenge newsletter, and at the back you could order assorted Sega merchandise and stuff, some of which actually I should probably wear my Sega. It's right over those headphones. Right over the headphones, so it doesn't fit very well. But there is a videotape that you could order that had video footage of all these Sega games.

In a world where you couldn't rent mass system games, because none of the video source cared, just any video footage of a master system game is gold. So one of the games that they featured on there was Fantasy Zone the Maze. So I would watch that over and over and over again. By the time I got to play it, it was like, all right. Again, it was, what, 88, 89? And just as a dot eater, it just felt weird because the whole thing about dot eaters is that you were not very powerful. You were getting chased all the time until you turned the tables on them. So a dot eater where you had a gun didn't feel right.

Yeah, but you don't have the gun the entire time. For the most part, you're helpless in the maze. You have to spend cash in order to acquire those guns. And they're temporary. And you can keep buying them. But then you run out of money. And there are times where you need lots of money to buy like invincibility because you let too many of those little minor enemies spawn from the bosses because the timer ticks over. And they all show up. And those little guys are way faster than you. So if you're not careful, then you quickly get overwhelmed. Like there's no way to outrun those things. unless you get lots of speed-ups, and those become progressively more expensive, just like in Fantasy Zone. I think it's really well-balanced. And I agree that at the time, people were probably like, oh, it's a Pac-Man wann-be. But, you know, then you look at Game Boy and Game Gear, which came out a couple of years later, and those systems were loaded with maze-type games along the lines of Pac-Man. You know, I think it might have been misreading the room a little bit.

it. People didn't necessarily want to play that sort of game on consoles at the time. But then you have, you know, the portable systems came along and they just brought back all these old arcade concepts and regurgitated old PC games from the early 80s, you know, stuff like Flappy or Pitman or Cat Trap. There were all these kind of vintage early 80s PC games that were very simple. New Zealand, what was it? The Tasmanian story. So I feel like Fantasy Zone the Maze maybe works better in retrospect when kind of time compresses everything and collapses it into a singularity when you look back. But regardless of how it was received at the time, I think it's an incredibly clever take on the maze chase that incorporates elements of a completely different franchise that feels very true to that franchise. And I really, I really think it's a great game.

And I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it when I finally sat down to play it. I like it too. And I like the, this sounds like a backhanded compliment, but the graphics are very sort of, sort of garish. And for that reason, I think it kind of jumps out at you, it pops. It's got a real pleasant sort of color scheme going on. But there's the game that I compare it to, possibly spureously. 84 Spatter, the Sega maze game Spatter, where you're a little guy on a tricycle. Because that's a Pac-Man alike, too, sort of, but you have more offensive options and more evasive options.

So I think it almost feels sort of a little bit more hand-in-hand with that while not being entirely the same thing. It's, I think, I feel like it's, I feel like it's at least a spiritual successor for that game in some respects, but maybe I'm just being crazy. Yeah, that would make sense. The guy who made Spatter was the same guy who did the original Fantasy Zone. I don't know if he worked on Fantasy Zone the maze, but it would certainly make sense. Yuji Ishi. Interesting. Yeah, I'm looking at this.

I've never heard of Spatter, but it looks very much along those lines. But also, having played through the SG-1000 library, it really reminds me a Pachar, which was kind of the SG-1,000 sequel to head-on. So it's kind of got these arcade routes going way back in time for Sega. I don't know what that actually has to do with Opa-Opa as a mascot, but I just wanted to talk about how good fantasies own the maze is, because I love it. It's cool. And yeah, and if you want to play Spatter, it's on the Mega Drive Mini 2.

They ported it's the Mega Drive. I don't know if the Mega Drive Mini 2 is now expensive. I'm going to guess that it is. I don't know. Probably not. Hmm, okay. Well, morally... I think the only one of those old systems that's really gone through the roof has been

the turbographics. Okay, I'm going to just go and sell my turbographics real quick. Anyway, so, Opa, Opa, three games. All very good. All exceptional. games. But as Stuart said, Opa Opa is a mascot. He's like a little tricolor egg with wings.

How does that work as a character as opposed to like a little guy who floats around in the background of a cartoon? Opa Opa is a beautiful boy. He is. Beautiful, winged little feet are just one.

I wish I had a plush Opa Opa. I love when he runs around on the ground in the stages. Like that was a thing for a while. You could also do that in legendary wings. You could do that in Section Z. It's like, hey, what if you were a guy who flies, but also

you could run if you felt like it. It's stupid. It's better to fly, but you can do it. It's just a contextual thing. It's nice because you don't crash into the ground. You put your little feet out and you're like, okay, time to run. It's like one of those transforming robot shooter games, except they know that there's no

actual reason to become a robot, so it's just a little graphical thing. So you can do the Gerwalk mode, but that's it. All right. And now. And now we're on to the final. final contender in our trio here, Wonder Boy. And Wonder Boy, like Opa Opa, did not begin life on Master System. He began life in arcades, but his best game was created for Master System, and therefore, I'm counting him. Also, even though Wonder Boy's original adventure showed up on the NES, it did not star Wonder Boy. So therefore Wonder Boy, the character, is, I believe, owned by Sega.

Is that not correct? So I have a lore question here. Is this all the same Wonder Boy, like in the three games? Yes. Let's get our teeth into this. I wasn't sure if, like, Monsterland Wonder Boy is the same guy. Is it still Tom Tom? Uh, no.

He's named Bokkely Temjin in the second and third game. I think it's supposed to be that name. Bach in the first game but he was renamed Tom Tom for the international release I guess because it just sounds more like what a jungle kid would be named I see

Well he was just you know forced to change his name as civilization And sure it is So does Wonderboy count as a character Then if it's If it's not even the same character

In these games Like Wonderboy in Monsterland And Wonderboy 3 That's clearly the same guy Because Wonder Boy 3 begins, you know, Castlevania Symphony of the Nightlike, although I guess that ripped that off, ripped off Wonder Boy with the final showdown of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, which then immediately segues into the adventure of Wonder Boy 3. So that guy's the same. But the dude with the grass skirt who later became Takahashi Meijing, who is he? And it gets even more complicated when you look at other ports of the game to other platforms where,

Like, one of them is a Bikurieman world game. One of them, he's a dynastic hero and he's wearing like a beetle armor or something. It was just all over the place. West Stone had no shame in just handing this content to other people. But on Sega, it's always Wonderboy. And everywhere else, it's some other guy. I think Sega owns the name Wonderboy, I think. That's my impression.

Although then you do have the question of why the Game Gear version is called Revenge of Drancon instead of Wonder Boy, even though it's just Wonder Boy. Oh, that was the weirdest thing. I totally forgot about that. I chat every once in a while with one of the co-founders of Westone, and when they were putting together the compilation recently, he asked me, it was like, why did they rename Wonder Boy for the Game Gear? And I don't think anybody knew the answer. Like, I went and dug up some old reviews from electronic gaming monthly and stuff, and even they were baffled. I think they just came to the personal conclusion is that Wonder Boy was kind of an old game. You know, it came out in, like, 1986 of the master system, and they just wanted to market it as something new.

I guess from the American perspective, they thought that was better compared to Japan, where they thought the nostalgic version was more appropriate. They wanted to trick you into buying it, as you already said. Yeah, precisely. I kind of felt tricked by it. Yeah, I mean, that's job of marketing, though. It's like that Mega Drive game, Socket, which is just tricking you to buying it because it sounds a bit like Sonic. It's not. It doesn't really sound that much like Sonic.

It does if you're like, I don't know, someone's a grand who doesn't have great hearing. And you're like, I want Sonic for Christmas's grand. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. It's the blue hair tactic. I got it. Yeah. I mean, Wonder Boy, like, this is just the weirdest series ever.

And even with the modern sort of remakes and re-releases. No, I don't even know that much about it. I just know that you could pick up your Nintendo Switch now, and there are, I think, like, four different Wonderboy things you can buy, and none of them are the same thing. And, like, it's just real confusing. But on the Mars system, at least, you've just got this one arcade game,

which has nothing whatsoever to do with the two Monsterland games. At least they go kind of hand in hand to some extent. Wonder Boy in Monsterland was the one I had as a kid and I loved it never finished it but I loved it even when I know what to do

it's just too damn hard so I ain't that ain't happening I tried the other day it ain't happening but yeah I got love for this series I do like the original as well I think it's a really fun arcadey run and jump kind of game

but as for a master system mascot no no I don't think so not really I just can't with it it was I mean Was it Master System first in any respect other than Dragon's Trep? Was that Master System first? Yes.

Yeah. But if you're going to give it to someone who's only got one game, really, that's originally on the Mast System. That's true, I guess. I was going to say, again, the Nan Jungle Fighter, only one game, Master System. He's in the jungle. It's kind of the same. You know, might as well be talking about that. The thing about Monster Boy.

Wonder Boy. That's the thing. It's so confusing. It's like. Monster Lair would have worked really well in the Master System, and they didn't do it. That's the real Wonder Boy three you're talking about, right? The other one. Yes, the one that started in arcades.

Yeah, yeah. But by skipping that for Master System and putting an original Wonder Boy game on Master System, that's true. I feel that cements Tom Tom or Tim Jen or whoever's legacy as a Master System mascot. I mean, that is one of the best Master System games. like, I love Dragon's Trap, but I also love Fantasy Star, but I wouldn't call Alice Landale the mascot. That's because she hadn't been in two games before, Wonderlander.

True, true. I guess it's the prejudice that a mascot has to be a platformer, which is why I can't stand up for Opa Opa, but, like, Wonder Boy is really, there's only, like, one real platformer game where he's in, and that was an arcade game. Do you do sights rolling jumping all the time? it's fine. Yeah, but to me, I guess, Dragon's Trap is, when you take Wonderboy,

it's more like saying, is Castlevania a mascot of than Nintendo? Like, he's representative of the system, but I wouldn't really call him a mascot. I guess it's just not that type of game. I mean, Arizonk was the mascot of the Turbo Duo. Yeah. Kodami treated Pentaro as a mascot for years.

Yeah. Well, he got a platformer. He wasn't, like, he doesn't count. He's from a computer game. I mean, that's at different rules. Okay, this is, I swear I'm not doing a bit. Okay, I genuinely don't know this. Master System Wonderboy, we've got Wonder Boy, we've got Wonder Boy and Monster

Land and we've got Wonder Boy 3, the Dragon's Trap. There's a fourth Master System Wonder Boy game called Wonder Boy and Monster World, which is like a back port of the Mega Drive game of the same name, is that right? Oh, is that just in Europe? Well, that's the thing. I've never seen it, ever, and I'm not convinced it did come out in Europe. I think that I just, I don't know. Is it one of those Brazil things?

I don't think so. Because that would be monica, wouldn't it? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true. I think they did make a Monica version, but no, there's definitely a version that is just Monster World for the master system. Maybe it's one of those gimmick things where it only came out in Scandinavia or something weird. Yeah, maybe, because I've never seen it. I've never seen anyone like on sort of the different, like, communities selling a copy of it that seemed legit.

And the ones on eBay look like reprers to me. And I just don't know if this game even ever actually came out over here. I know you can get like the rum of it, but you mustn't, obviously. But that doesn't necessarily mean it came out. I find the whole thing so almost like a ghost game. It's like between worlds. It's stranger things. It's crazy.

Oh, yeah. There's a weird ghost thing with the arcade game. Because like Alex Kid and Lostars, Sega didn't release the arcade game here of Wonderboy in Monsterland. Yeah. But they made one. Like, it was sitting in a warehouse for a long time. And that was the version that they used for the basis of, like, all the European computer ports.

And nobody realized this until they, like, the Sega Age's version that came out in, like, the late 2000s, early 2010s that had the same translation. They're like, so where did this come from? There's all these weird hacked together bootleg monster lands on eBay that have various weird title screens where they're They were, like, trying to fit it into the Japanese. Yeah, it must, I don't know how that scene came out. Because it did, was released somehow within English translation. It just wasn't official. Yeah.

I just, I'm just looking into it, and, like, I found a scan of the cover of the master's version with, like, 1993 date, but the blurb on the back spells armor in the American way, and I don't trust it. Oh, that's so weird. It definitely did not come out here. Mm. No one was releasing a Master System game that late. 93 is very late for Master System, super late.

Even over here. I can't think of that many that were the 93 games. And I'm just skeptical of this whole enterprise, quite frankly. The distribution for the Master System got really weird in the later years, because there's a second push for it after the Genesis came out. So we got stuff like Sonic the Hedgehog and Strider and ghouls and ghosts. And after that, it was basically done. But I think some occasionally came over here through like discount channels.

Like I remember seeing PowerStrike. Like originally when that was first released, it was something you could only get by ordering at the back of the Sega Challenge newsletter. And it came with this weird black and white cover. But I remember being at a closeout store in like 9192 and seeing like the European version, which had the proper color box art. I think there was like some attempt to get people to like beef up the Mega Drive Genesis Library. I've been hanging around Europeans too much

alongside the master Genesis converter. Yeah, because it was the Powerbase converter. There was the master year that mentioned before. So you could play the old library if you had the correct hardware to do it. Except for F-16 fighting Falcon. Because everyone was clamoring to play that years

later. And, of course, the Sega card can't be done. Oh, yeah. Yes. Just check them in the middle. No, I's had the Sega card. Hmm. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, the power base converter, but the master gear couldn't. I think Europe got a different one. That was just a Sonic and Knuckles type thing. Oh, wow. So, yeah, I am seeing clear evidence that Wonderboy and Monster World was a European release, as you said, 1993. three in both Europe and Korea, according to Game Fax's release list. Although, Game Facts parses Westone as West One, so can we really trust Game Facts? Clearly incorrect.

I don't say this because I don't believe you, but could you please delineate what makes this evidence clear? I would like to know for my own sanity. like it's here in their list with very convincing scans of the front and back of the box Sega Retro has a very fuzzy scan of a box for this game with a Portuguese label on it I'm reasonably sure it's on the PlayStation 2 Monster World collection because it was only released in English so it was kind of an oddity you know the recent Wonder Boy collection

this is my favorite weird distributed trivia about that. It's the first time that the Master System version has Japanese language in it.

Like, because it was released like... Of Wonder Boy 3? Yeah, Wonder Boy 3. Wow. Because it was made for the master system,

but Sega pulled the plug on it and so it wasn't released in Japan, but it came out everywhere else. It did, wasn't it remade? Did the Game Gear version come out in Japan? Yes, that was,

I think the second time maybe it came out. It also came out for the TurboGraphic 16 because they had a type working relationship with Hudson. And even though they changed the name, they didn't change much of the actual game for that one. But those releases were in Japanese, but the Masked System version, even though it had ended up on the, like, I think other, like you could play the remake in Japanese, I think. But they actually went back and hacked the ROM for it. I'm like, oh, the purple pig speaks with an Osaka accent.

That was a cool thing. Yeah. The funny thing is, even though Wonderboy 3 was never released in Japan, it's one of those games that they had an FM soundtrack built into it. Yeah, it was a late enough in development. a Japanese console. It's in English, but you get the, you get the FM sound. So clearly some shenanigans happened during the translation process. But Stuart, I'm also looking at a scan on game facts of Wonderboy and Monster World, the classic Master System version, which has kind of like a brown cover. Yeah, they weren't very good covers. And it does spell armor the European way, the British way. Okay, I'll take it then.

I bet that costs a million pounds to buy it. Probably so, yes. No, I want to say about Wonder Boy anniversary collection because you mentioned it, Kurt. That thing's a damn miracle that I think even exists, quite frankly, to bring all those games together finally. But that was the first time I was able to play Wonderboy in Monsterland, the Master System version, in English since I had it back in the... I think I still have it, actually. I should probably sell that and remortgage. Oh, whatever.

But no, I could never get the rum working in English no matter which one I tried to download. I don't know what was going on with that. I don't know if I was just being stupid, but it was such a pleasure to play that game in English again and once again failed to get to the end. I have also never beaten that because it's, I don't know, there's a kind of a connection between that game

and Alex Kid and America World, and that it is a very straightforward level-based game where there's even a money system, but there's also different quests you need to do, and if you don't get them by the end, you can very much get screwed. But I don't even think that's what messed me up. There's one section right before the end where you have to jump and back and forth between these platforms, between a very narrow passage, and the rhythm needs to be precisely on.

And it goes for several screens. I don't think I was able to do it. I think, yeah, if you haven't got the right boots, you can't. It's quite a long game, too. Yeah, there's a time limit there. So eventually you would just run out of time and die. And that version doesn't have any continues either, so it's rough. Yeah, the time limit's what gets me.

on that always. I think that the secret quest, air quotes, to get the end, to get the, you can get either a bell or something else and you have to, you really need the bell, but then the other item makes the boss a lot easier, so, yeah, it's really rough. But I think

that the, um, that quest is actually quite well clued. Like, if you pay attention, like, they'll tell you where to go next to get the next piece of it. It's not as abstract or arbitrary as an Alex kid. I think Montserland would be a brilliant game and is a brilliant game

but if they were to include an option and some modern port that would turn that off which the time limit off which they may have done in the new version I haven't actually checked that would make it

something of a masterpiece and I also used to get stuck on the Sphinx when he asked you questions about Seya because I didn't know the one he's talking about back there but that's the whole other thing

great game Kazimo cure you I don't know who that is oh that's a good test for which of these can be legit because Oprah Oprah I want to say is the only one who's turned up

in Yakuza because you can play Fancy Zone right? There's no lost stars in any Yakuza, but maybe you can play Alex Kidd in one of the judgment games, because you've got a master system in that. I don't know if you can or not. I don't think Kyrie wants to be seen with a character who has a fist more powerful than his own. That's fair. I think there's like professional jealousy happening there.

That makes sense, yeah. Yeah. So Wonderboy, iffy on whether or not, one, it is truly a master system franchise, given his arcade origins. Just because the best game in the series started a master system, I guess that's not enough for some people in their hearts. It's not in the quartet sound test. Opa Opa Opa is there. Alex Kidd is there. Pitpot is the brother of Alex Kidd is there.

Pitpot is the brother of Alex Kidd is important lore. Oh, yeah, deep lore. No, he's not. And Teddy Boy is there. Eagle is the brother of Alex Kidd. Oh, that is one thing that's especially annoying about high-tech world, because that's like a six-year-old, you poured over that manual, and you, like, memorized all the character names. I'm like, okay, this is Alex's family, and then high-taker world comes up, and there's all

these nobodies. And, like, I can't believe they disrespected him that way. I was, like, who are these people? Yeah. They're given this whole law and miracle world, and then they just went, you know what, screw that, screw all these people. But I guess it makes it transition to him being a ninja. Like, it does kind of make sense.

So I guess, in retrospect, it makes, it comes together. Alex suffered the traumatic loss of his entire family and became a ninja. He studied the blade. Yeah. Headed down to the mall. Yeah. Fought himself some swords. Okay, so Wonderboy, maybe not, like I said,

maybe not a Master System franchise in the true depth of its heart. And also, is Wonderboy from Wonderboy the same as Wonderboy from Wonderboy in Monsterland? Maybe not. Maybe this was just a case of... It's the whole set of Wonderstead. Boys. West Stone and Sega saying, like, well, we've got this cool action RPG inflected arcade game where you like kill stuff with a sword and it has nothing to do with

Wonder Boy, but there is some name cachet with Wonder Boy. People gobbled up that SG1000 port. So let's rebrand it. Let's call this Wonder Boy for no good reason. So I think that's, I think it might be disqualifying. Wonder Boy for SG 1000 is gold. It's definitely a thing that they did. And I respect that they made the effort.

But wow, yeah. Tough times. I have to say, like, just definitively, for future reference, because you know, people look to retronauts for, like, sort of really canonizing these things sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. I would like to say now... Retro is 10 years old because of us.

Yeah, it is. Well, I changed it to one second, actually, a long time ago. I don't know if I told you. But I'd like to stay here and now, with the capacity of the authority that I do have, the limited authority that I'm allowed, all the Wonderboys are the same guy. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't matter if they conflict. They just now are. And that's now, you need to go and update all the Wikipedia pages or books need to be rewritten because that's now the case. They're all the same Wonderboy. I believe it. Thanks. I'm on board.

Except Asha. Because that's not Wonder Boy. That's Monster Land. Also Wonder Boy. Sorry. I was about to say I don't make the rules, but apparently I do. So maybe Wonderboy is like a club. It's like a, it's not.

not, it's not the character name. It's just like the team that they belong to. We're all Wonderboys. Same guy. I guess that was what Nicole was saying. It makes sense, but unfortunately no, they are just all the same guy. I know it makes no sense, but it's, I'm steamroll in this one, I'm afraid. Well, Asha isn't in a Wonderboy game. It's just Monster World. Right. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Still, it applies. For no reason. All right, so, working backward from the now just the now just qualified Wonderboy, I guess that means. The question is, fantasy zone or, or, sorry, Opa, Opa or Alex Kidd.

I guess right there you have a good case for Alex Kidd because Alex Kidd name right there. Alex Kidd in whatever, whereas Fantasy Zone is not Opa Opa Opa in Fantasy Zone. You don't get Opa Opa Opa's name until Fantasy Zone 2. And then it's the tiers of Opa, which that's very stirring, but not exactly like the most inspiring association for a character name. Although I guess technically fantasy zone, the maze was called Opa Opa in Japan. But again, that never came here. And that was not what they called the master system version. So where do we stand?

This is the moment of decision. I guess we all sound off. It's possible we could, there's four of us here. So we could enter a deadlock. This may accomplish nothing whatsoever aside from just qualifying Wonderboy. So, uh, let's, uh, let's, uh, let's, uh, let's. Let's ask our expert guest, Nicole, to weigh in first. Alex Kidd or Opa Opa?

For the master system, specifically. Master System mascot. I think it's got to be Alex Kidd. Okay. I know. And your argument is... If Opa Opa had been the mascot, they would have put Opa Opa in high-tech world, in Shinobe world. They didn't.

Ah, you can't beat that. And I would have played Opa Opa in Shinobe World. okay you make you make a compelling argument um stuart where do you stand on this okay well all right excuse me this is important for me um for me it's alex however the reasoning is having a consistently excellent series of games like oba oba has that's not the master's dumb way you know that's not I mean this. That's fair. What you want is you want a hodgepodge mixture of, like, great and total garbage within the same series.

Like, that's that right there, that's the master system library to me. And I love the master system from the bottom of my bloated heart. But it's, that's, oh, but no, too good to be the master's system mascot. Bless it. No. I, you know, that might be the best possible. argument for Alex Kidd as the mascot. I don't know.

Kurt, where do you stand on this? I just can't buy a shoot-em-up. I mean, I love shoot-em-ups, but just as a character, they can't be. What is this genre bias? I don't understand. I don't get it either. I can't explain it. It's just a mascot has to be a platformer.

And if there was, if they were like Twinby, Twinby was a mascot kind of. They even made a whole bunch of anime and comic books around him. But he got a platformer. and all of them eventually down the road, so that counted. But fantasy zone, I don't know. Not convinced by my Erzonk argument? No, because he started as a platformer too. That's true.

And, oh, geez. Could it affect your argument if you knew that Opa also had a tennis and a driving? Um, a little bit, but that's kind of like an in retroactive sort of thing. I don't think they were actually in the tennis game. I think I've misremembered that. So strike that from the argument, please. That would have been real funny to see him. I thought Oprah should have been in the tennis game.

That is a big over site by Sega. Yeah. Alex Kidd was in the tennis game and he looked amazingly hideous. Google it, kids. I think it's also that the mass system for to Fantasy Zone is very good. But the arcade version is still better. And there's no arcade version of Miracle World. It's just the master system.

So that feels like it's more central to its identity. No one actually cares about the lost. ours. Yeah, that doesn't, it doesn't matter. All right. Well, that's three against one. I was going to say Opa, Opa, but it doesn't matter because I have been suppressed. My opinion has been squandered by democracy. So, congratulations, Alex Kidd. Something finally went right for you. And you have been declared the victor. You are the official, as determined by Retronauts, the podcast of record about classic games. The official mascot of Sega Master System, please wear your tiny, tatty crown with pride.

You get what you deserve, Alex. Although, although... I hope you made it to the arcade. In the poster that came with all the Master System games in 1986, Wonderboy and two opa opas are on there. There's no Alex kid. Oh. Two opa opas.

Yeah. Oh, that changed... Okay, I'm changing my vote to Opa Opa. Yeah, wait a second. Yeah. Why wouldn't they have Alex Kidd? I thought he was the mascot. I guess he's not.

I guess he was just too big for his britches at that point. Like, I'm not slumming it with these people. Imagine being the defaulting. Call me for my trailer when you're ready to shoot. But two opos? Even Sega don't love him. Oh, sorry, I miscounted two. One, two.

Three. Three opos. There's also the legendary missiles from missile defense. So I don't know if this is the best gauge to use. Oh, fair play. Yeah. Is the Nand Jungle Fighter on there? Maybe Mark Sarnie put that poster together.

Maybe that explains it. Is Robocod on it? Probably not. This was an American poster. Oh, darn it. James Bond is not popular enough over here to merit of satire. No one's ever heard of this James Bond guy. Anyway, okay, well, that settles it.

Alex Kidd, he found the miracle ball, and he found his purpose in life, and he found, most of all, representation. He found the Master's Association. system kids who will vouch for him. So thank you for helping us to settle this. I'm glad that this, the, again, most important debate of our time has been settled. And now I guess I must weep for there are no more worlds to conquer. But we will wrap up this episode with our crying the tears of Opa Opa. That's right. Exactly. It all comes full circle. Opa Opa is crying because you've all spurned him. He's so sad. Sorry, I'm open.

All right. So this has been Retronauts, the official podcast of Alex Kidd. I hope you've enjoyed it. If you enjoyed listening to us talk about how amazing Alex Kidd is, you can find more of that every week at Retronauts.com and on various podcatchers and so on and so forth. And if you want to support our praise of Alex Kidd and help finance it, well, good news. This podcast is funded almost entirely through Patreon. at patreon.com. If you subscribe, you get early access,

higher quality downloads than on the public feed. If you subscribe to the proper tiers, you will get, that's tiers as in levels, not as in opa opas. You will get access to biweekly patron exclusive podcasts, weekly columns by Diamond Fight,

and many other cool things, some to yet be revealed. So, oh, also Discord access. That's a cool thing, because I'm there talking. Yes, it's great. You can come commiserate with me about how Opa Opa deserved better. So, yeah, check it out.

Patreon.com slash Retronauts. Now everyone else, please tell us where we can find you. Nicole, I will let you go first as the newest addition to the retronauts coterie. Yeah, you can check out my blog at Nicole. DotExpress. DotExpress is the domain name. I felt pretty clever for that. but now it sounds really

I didn't realize that was a domain that's a cool domain I've never seen anyone else way better than dot org Nicole what is what is on the blog I'd like to know what's on the blog please yes that's probably more useful than saying just go to this website

check it out yeah I do kind of tech oriented looks into old retro systems I think recently I did I recently did post in the cassette vision and the Apple 2, looking at their graphics systems.

Those were different posts, to be clear, not the cassette vision and the Apple 2. I don't think they have anything in common. And also, I've done some things on the master system, including multiple blog posts on ALF, because apparently ALF is my life. Someone has to. All right. Yeah, definitely check out Nicole's blog. It's a great resource, even if you're not making Master System videos the way

that I am. Stuart, where can we find you on the internet? You can find me mostly on Retronauts, actually. I'm right here right now. Hello, it's me. Stuart Chip. But you can also find me on Twitter as Stupaccarver or Blue Sky, just as Stuart Chip. I'm thinking I'm going to leave Twitter soon.

There's just too many Nazis on there, you know. It's real bad. It's not good at all now, is it? It's pretty much just like, yeah, well, we all know. It's very bad. So I'll probably leave. But you all have to follow me over there because otherwise I'm not going to feel important. And it's imperative that I feel important every second of every day or go to pieces.

So, yeah. And also you can buy my extremely good book. All games are good, which is about how every game that's ever been made is perfect. And that includes Alex Kidd in high-tech world. Yes. Kurt. How can we find you? I'm at Hardcore Gaming 101.1.

That's Hardcore Gaming 101.1.net. Still on Twitter for now at HG underscore 101, and I'm pretty sure it's just HG 101 on Blue Sky. I write a lot about Sega stuff growing up as an underdog with the master system, I'm pretty sure. Informed half my personality, which is why I write more about Sega than Nintendo, and sort of carry that on. I was quoted in a retrogamer magazine as an Alex Kid expert, which is what happens when you just really, really like something and nobody else cares. I feel that. And finally, you can find me on the internet as Jeremy Parrish on YouTube here on Retronauts on Blue Sky. I guess there I'm just J. Parrish and doing stuff for limited run games.

Like right now I'm putting together books that are much bigger and more complex and comprehensive than they need to be for Tomba and Ninja 5O and 8Bit music power encore. So if you pick up those special editions, you get more me. So please look forward to that. In the meantime, you can find more me and more of other retronauts every week on Retronauts. That's this podcast. Yeah. Listen to us. We're cool, even though we did vouch for Alex Kidd.

Thank you.